Flip Flop #2: Accent Nail

I received some nail mail today (pretttiiiiieeesss) - one domestic containing 10 polishes and no hazardous goods sticker on the outside, and one international labelled as electronics.  You can try to stop us Royal Mail...mwahahahaha.

Anyhoo, it's day 2 of the challenge!  I'm still on track (yes, that is an achievement, even at this early stage).  Today's choice was Stained Glass or Accent Nail.  I don't have enough jelly polishes to do a stained glass manicure, so I went for accent nail.  Well, accent nails.  So just a standard manicure then...  (This is probably considered cheating.)

I think I forgot to top coat this...I was obviously too absorbed in Corrie.  But anyway, ignoring the rather rough finish, I used Barry M Gold Foil and Gold Glitter for the plain nails, and then China Glaze Call of the Wild with my DIY gold leaf topcoat (which you can see in all its glory here) for the accent nails.

Last week I was searching for a dark brown, as I wasn't happy about having to use too light a brown for my Ferrero Rocher manicure, so a quick shout out to the lovely ladies from the British Bloggers group for pointing me in the direction of some gorgeous browns.  This is literally the exact colour I was looking for :)

You're probably  getting sick of the index and middle finger accent now, aren't you?  I'll try to mix it up a bit, although I can't make any promises...

Tomorrow's choices are a water or a dry marble.  No prizes for guessing which I'm going to choose lol.

Ferrero Rocher

I love these nails.  I don't even care if I'm blowing my own trumpet - they are epic.

My boyfriend bought me one of the cone-shaped Ferrero Rocher things for Christmas.  I don't know how many were in it, and I'm glad, because if I did know I probably wouldn't be feeling too good about myself right now lol.  Anyhoo, as I was stuffing another chocolate in my mouth yesterday, I was struck by an idea - a Ferrero Rocher manicure!

I used OPI Over The Taupe for all the brown bits, and Barry M Gold Foil for the lines.  I should've used tape for my lines really, but it's such a faff...

I used some of the gold foil I received from Born Pretty Store for the ring finger accent, with a coat of matte top coat over it.  I wonder if anyone can tell what I used for my thumb...?

And here's a closer look at the accent nails!

DIY Gold Leaf Topcoat

So we've all seen these gold leaf top coats that are around at the moment, and cost a small fortune.  I was particularly taken with the OPI one, due entirely to the shiny bottle of course.  Sadly, I didn't actually like the look of the polish at all...and I couldn't even justify to myself getting someone else to spend the money on it for me.

However, when I got these gold and silver foils to review from Born Pretty Store, I thought I'd have a go at making my own top coat.

The set contains six each of gold and silver foils, each sheet in a separate little pot.  All the pots come together in a little plastic box.

To make my top coat I used two sheets.  I just scrunched them up and rubbed them on a nail file, then I put all the little pieces into an almost empty bottle of some old gloopy Seche Vite (I thought the gloopiness might make it more like a suspension base?  No idea if this is true...).  I was worried I wouldn't have enough to do a full manicure, although I don't know why since each sheet is about 5x7 cm, so just one would be enough to entirely cover all of my nails.  Must have been all the Christmas drinking affecting my brain.  Needless to say, there's plenty left.

Anyway, I used two coats of my DIY gold leaf topcoat over Jessica Ruffled Bottoms.

I looooove it.  So so so so much.  I am a total gold leaf top coat convert.  I love the big bits so much, and I like how some of it's so small it almost looks like glitter.  So so pretty.  AND I wore this for over a week and it didn't even chip until the day I took it off.  I think it was all the layers of Seche Vite lol.  Nothing was getting through that.

I did also attempt a manicure with the silver foil, but I made such a bad polish colour choice to go with it that I had to take it off immediately (even my boyfriend said it was diabolical...).  The foil's quite tricky to handle since it's so so thin and delicate.  It's fine for tearing off random bits to put on your nails or stuff like that, but I don't think it'd be suitable for cutting shapes out of (unless you're a lot more patient than me perhaps).  It's great stuff though - I just need another empty bottle now to make a silver foil topcoat!

You can see the gold and silver foils here.  The set of 12 costs $5.53 (about £2.75) and shipping is free, wherever you may be in the world.

Don't forget, if you want to buy these or any of the other products on Born Pretty Store, you can use the discount code LKL91 for 10% off.

What do you think of gold leaf top coats?  Have you bought one, or would you attempt to make your own like I have?